Only dialogue between people of HK and Beijing can end crisis
Peaceful protests in the former British colony have descended into chaos and anarchy
DISTRICT COUNCIL elections in Hong Kong on November 24 seemingly brought a lull to the disruption in the region.
But there are many in the world who welcomed with glee the violent events that have occurred over the past few months in the former British colony.
These elements include vast swathes of the Western media. The news media outlets that gloat over the situation are fuelled by very powerful elites in the West who fear a united People’s Republic of China that continues its phenomenal economic growth and promotes the participation and development of other countries in the global south.
The West has been accustomed to dominating the world, first through a system of violently enforced colonialism and currently through virulent neocolonialism. Western elites do not want China to challenge the traditional economic status quo and any opportunity to promote chaos and support anarchy in Hong Kong suits their agenda.
Fear drives this agenda, fear of losing dominance in a world that has been shaped by the kind of oppression that led to wars of colonial conquest and punitive repressive violence across the world.
In China’s case, one only has to inform oneself about the Opium Wars that were mounted against the Qing dynasty by Britain (later joined by France) in the mid-19th century.
Britain dominated the opium trade and did not want the Chinese authorities to clamp down on the use of the drug.
The wars are directly related to Hong Kong because the colonial victors forced a treaty on the Chinese authorities that included, among other punitive measures, that Hong Kong be ceded to Britain. Hong Kong was ruled by Britain from 1843 to 1997 (with a spell of Japanese rule during World War II).
In 1997, Hong Kong was officially handed back to China.
The Chinese government has, since the handover, bent over backwards to ensure that Hong Kong retains its character and its economic and administrative systems.
Deng Xiaoping, during the 1980s when he was the leader of the country, formulated the “One country, two systems” constitutional principle that guaranteed Hong Kong’s rights and freedoms. It was officially called the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
This year, a law related to the extradition of criminals to territories which do not currently have extradition treaties with Hong Kong became the focus of protesters. They put forward their concerns that the bill would undermine the autonomy of the region. Then four other demands were hooked on to the political agenda.
Beginning, peacefully on the whole, in June the protests soon began to become worryingly prone to acts of violence and anarchy, even though Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, suspended work on the extradition bill on June 15.
Demonstrators have blocked roads and access to public buildings, attacked and damaged the legislative council building and perpetrated many other acts of sabotage. In the escalating violence, 11 police officers were attacked and one of them had his finger bitten off.
There were also incidents of paintbomb throwing and police found a cache of Molotov cocktails. Towards the end of July, protesters disrupted operations at the international airport, harassing passengers and creating chaos in terms of flights. These were just the tip of the iceberg in what has been a plunge from legitimate protest into violent anti-social activity.
Early last month a protester beat up a man with a stick and a mob pulled a taxi driver out of his car and beat him until he was covered in blood.
There was also an incident where a well-known actress was beaten because she was taking pictures of protesters vandalising a bank.
On Monday, November 11, Leung Chi-chueng, a 57-year-old father of two daughters, was set alight by protesters after he confronted them as they set about vandalising a train station. The culprits were masked.
A November 7 New York Times article had this to say about the continuing protests: “A confrontational core of Hong Kong’s anti-government protesters have acted with greater ferocity in recent weeks, attacking individuals and smashing and torching store fronts, banks, cafés and subway entrances.
“In a strikingly personal affront, one group even delivered a severed pig’s head to a police officer’s wedding banquet.”
It is therefore of paramount importance to the future of Hong Kong that violent protesters be weeded out by the police. This would occur in any country faced with these problems.
There is no room for sanctimonious criticism of the process of quelling these catastrophic riots. All police forces and governments in the world would act to restore order to ensure its citizens were safe and that normal activities were not reduced to chaos.
If there is evidence of outside interference by governments or other organisations including the type of right-wing organisations that foster and fund chaos in countries that they target as left wing or socialist, then this must be investigated and exposed.
This is an imperative for the millions of people who live in Hong Kong and also for all the people who do business with it or visit there for tourism and other activities.
Protesters should also be wary of naively thinking the West, including America and its capricious President Donald Trump or Hong Kong’s former colonial masters, Britain, will step in to support them.
That is not how realpolitik works. Ultimately, it’s only dialogue between the people of Hong Kong and Beijing that can resolve the crisis.